


Post Traumatic Stress Detonator

by nic_takes_Ls (nic_L)



Series: The Bombs In Your Head & How To Make Them Stop [2]
Category: DreamSMP (Video Blogging RPF), Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: 'Villain' Wilbur Soot, (not graphic), Angst, Crying, Delusions, Dream finds a man in the woods and gives him a hug before helping him blow up everything, Explosions, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Manberg, Mental Instability, Not Beta Read - We Take L's, Not Villain Wilbur Soot, Panic Attacks, Pogtopia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Wilbur's Past Videos, Self-Sacrifice, The Intimidation Towers, The Sky Gods, Traitor!Wilbur, Wilbur Soot Needs a Hug, Wilbur Soot is Not Insane, Wilbur Soot-centric, Wilbur's self-administrated exposure therapy did not go well, Will He Get One?, Yes., auditory hallucinations, does it help?, hearing loss, it just gave him hearing loss, nope., suicidal idealization, the ocean, traitor!Wilbur Soot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:07:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27577619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nic_L/pseuds/nic_takes_Ls
Summary: Wilbur doesn’t know, exactly, what he’s doing out here, once again in the shadow of the intimidation tower, cool and chilling, dark and melding with the dappled shade of the trees.His fingertips used to flush when he reached for a match, tremble in the face of fire. Wilbur had wanted that to stop, but it’s much worse to be more afraid of what the water can do than fire. He doesn’t like the static in his head crashing like waves, turning his thoughts into sea spray and memories to foam.It’s getting harder to remember what he ever even liked about L’Manberg anymore. There’s just the war, really, and before that- The earliest things he could remember.A world of sky and nothing, one where bombs fell from the sky and made him afraid all that long ago. Magma oozed from pores in the ground and he fell. Then-The ocean. Of course.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Wilbur Soot, Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot
Series: The Bombs In Your Head & How To Make Them Stop [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2015807
Comments: 14
Kudos: 154





	Post Traumatic Stress Detonator

**Author's Note:**

> You should probably read Explosure Therapy first bc
> 
> Well. It’s a sequel and stuff might not make as much sense without it.

It’s such a [cold](https://editoriscold1.tumblr.com/) night out, stars glittering bitterly and wind nipping at Wilbur’s ears. The cobblestones of the ‘Intimidation Tower’ dig into his back and the lapping waves of the lake nearby move in tandem, back and forth, with his breaths. He tugs his hood over his head.

He stares emptily at the ground.

It’s his newest hobby, alongside disassociating and not sleeping and clawing his own sleeves when he hears-

Well.

Them.

Those bombs, hissing and angry and supposed to be gone oh so long ago?

Still there.

So when Tommy gives a riveting speech, when Quackity lays out a plan, Niki soothes, Techno reasons, and Tubbo tries to ask ‘What’s wrong?” in that soft ~~faux~~ worried voice, he doesn’t hear them, only hears the explosions.

No one touches him, anymore, at least. Wilbur is finally invisible once more in that ravine that will never be a home. He used to be known as funny, for being invisible, the kind with potions and particles and a horned friend still being a friend.

Tommy’s gaze either lingers in a disappointed way, the one that says that Wilbur is forsaken, (aren’t you?) or slips entirely over him. The rest of Pogtopia follows suit.

There’s no reason to be upset about it, so he isn’t. One of the people passing through those same halls, brushing shoulders and sharing air, is going to turn their back and stab Pogtopia’s anyways. It’s better to cut away the strings that weave him close. It is. 

Wilbur’s ears turn from hissing to static again. Those waves of sky-damned static.

He slams his hand into the ground and thuds his head into the stone behind him. He still only hears a roar of ocean.

He prefers the roar of fire and rumble of explosions only he can hear versus the static, really. 

His eyes droop even as his skull flares with pain, hand aches. 

Wilbur doesn’t want to go to sleep, there’s too much there, flashbacks to fire and- lately, freezing water, swallowing him whole. He hasn’t been dreaming about that for a while. Yet sleep claws into his chest and burrows there and Wilbur closes his eyes. 

  
Wilbur doesn’t know, exactly, what he’s doing out here, once again in the shadow of the intimidation tower, cool and chilling, dark and melding with the dappled shade of the trees. 

All he heard was “-Wilbur should leave-“ and the rest was silence in Quackity’s mouth, compared to the pooling of the static. It isn’t even the bombs hiding things from him this time.

Wilbur is holding the same pickaxe he used to pry into the walls of his button room, the one desecrated and emptied and hollow of ( ~~a savior~~ ) TNT. The day before the meeting, the meeting that didn’t go up in flames but was doused, Wilbur had finally been able to cradle the dynamite in his hands, no shaking no shuddering, just anticipation of freedom. 

He would have pressed a button, flicked a switch, lit the fucking fuse with his own two hands and the bombs would be happy and quiet and leave him alone to die in the flames.

But Manberg hates Wilbur and wants to shed blood over blood over blood on its lands. Into the rivers.

So there was nothing. 

He laughs, thinking of his button room with the words of a dead little song that he carved in the walls with his pick, ~~his own bloodied nails,~~ the sharp edge of his diamond sword he used to never have strapped to his side. 

Wilbur laughs and then sneers at the pick he holds. Snarls at his hands. 

They’re ragged and calloused, and they no longer feel twitchy and too-hot like they used to. His fingertips used to flush when he reached for a match, tremble in the face of fire. 

Wilbur had wanted that to stop, but it’s much worse to be more afraid of what the water can do than fire. He doesn’t like the static in his head crashing like waves, turning his thoughts into sea spray and memories to foam.

It’s getting harder to remember what he ever even liked about L’Manberg anymore. There’s just the war, really, and before that- 

The earliest things he could remember. 

A world of sky and nothing, one where bombs fell from the sky and made him afraid all that long ago. Magma oozed from pores in the ground and he fell. Then- 

The ocean. Of course. 

Wilbur wraps his arms around his knees and presses his back into the jutting cobblestone. He looks to the sky. A lock of hair catches in his eyelash and he brushes it back. 

The ocean roars louder in his head, an overwhelming hum. He could close his eyes and think he was being taken under by a [cold](https://theeditoris2cold.tumblr.com/) wave. 

The stars in the velvet black sky glitter and Wilbur finds the constellations he was raised on, the ones that only one other mortal knows. 

There’s the Giant, the Red Dragon, the Angle and Schlatt’s favourite, the Goose. Of course, it was only his favourite because he’d thought it was funny, but he still traced it with his finger when Wilbur would ask.

The last time Schlatt and him had spoken in any manner resembling their history chained together and tossed to the winds was-

Was just few weeks after the festival, the disaster, the wrong explosions. A few days after Wilbur had shown Quackity and Tommy his own ‘Final Control Room,’ that damned stone room.

Wilbur had been staring into a campfire he’d placed. Forcing himself to draw ever nearer, though his shoulders shudder and his chest aches.

Then Schlatt emerges from the shadows like one himself. He was always surprisingly good at being quiet when he wanted to be. 

His shoulders twitch as he sees Wilbur gazing back, face framed by the fire and expression absolutely tragic. Holds his hands in the air, empty and free of weapon. Face softens like it hadn’t in years.

He opens his arms and Wilbur comes barreling, half a head taller but still slotting himself under Schlatt’s chin like they were still frightened children.

They stand in silence, Wilbur’s tears soaking into Schlatt’s stiff suit fabric, grips tight and limbs tensed. 

And the the man who used to be just another boy who told half of the joke at a time and called wolves by a funny name speaks quietly into the smoke-tinged air. 

“Do you know why I’m doing this?” 

Wilbur doesn’t answer, just tightens his arms around Schlatt’s shoulders.

“You weren’t made for a purpose, Wilbur.” 

  
The words are blunt and Wilbur tucks his face into Schlatt’s neck. 

“You latch onto all these- things, projects, clung to anything to give you a satisfaction you’ll never feel. They lied.” 

Schlatt sighs and cautiously, as unused to touch as Wilbur himself, brings a hand up and brushes the curls tickling his throat away. 

“The Sky Gods lie, Wil. They’re fucked and so are we. You’re never going to matter more than any other person, not going to be the one reason something lives or dies. You’re a person. A free person. You could go to a new world and just- just _live_ , man.”

The men- the once almost brothers stand locked around each other, unspeaking.

“You’re never going to get L’Manberg back, Wilbur.” The words are whispered in Wilbur’s ear as solemn and true as a lover’s confession.

Wilbur smiles into Schlatt’s throat. Speaks. 

“I don’t want to.” He draws away for the first time, and two bleary brown eyes blinks doe-eyed at Schlatt. 

Schlatt takes a closer look at Wilbur’s face and stiffens. “What are you going to do.”

It isn’t a question, not really. But Wilbur steps out of Schlatt’s arms entirely and his smile grows. An echo of a bomb lingers in his head and he pointedly flickers his eyes from Schlatt’s wide amber ones to Manberg. 

“I’m going to save us all.” 

“What does that mean, Wil, you can’t-“ 

Schlatt stumbles forwards, and Wilbur tugs his shoulder from the man’s grasp. 

“You’re right. We are fucked, standing on this land, Manberg and all around. There’s only fighting here, the blood sinks in the ground and the earth itself thirsts for more.” 

Wilbur turns from Schlatt’s horrified eyes and laughs over the rising explosions he still hears. He _still_ hears. 

“I was supposed to stop _that_ on the night of the Festival! It was supposed to be over, in loud and explosions and- and-“ 

Wilbur locks his eyes with the campfire and suddenly devoid of shivers, snatched up a stick from the ground and lets it catch flame. 

Schlatt had scrambled for Manberg and Wilbur awoke next to the ashes of a [cold](https://3rathercoldeditors.tumblr.com/) dead campfire and faint burns on his fingertips. 

Now Wilbur finds himself connecting stars with his finger to his own favourite constellation; The Fish. 

Fish were the sacred animals of the sky gods, for whatever reason, they chose a creature that could go it’s entire life without touching the sky. 

It’s easier to understand why Wilbur had liked it so much now. He is a fish, essentially, deep underwater and drowning, but still never managing to reach the clouds with his own two hands. Or he had tried. When he fought for a throne that meant nothing. 

Schlatt was right, about never getting his nation back, that song will end unwritten, trailing off abruptly, no grand end for applause.

And his purpose was never to raise some land to greatness, he sees. To raze, maybe.

The sky gods sent Wilbur to end this blood-thirsty cycle and send everyone here to the sky. 

Wilbur leaps to his feet at the realization, and then takes his hood from over his head and to pull his arms from his coat, then throw the ash-dusted leather into the lake before him. 

He needs to be able to burn bright, and a heavy coat in the waters will just pull him down. His t-shirt exposes his pale arms to the biting [chill](https://editoriscoldexe.tumblr.com/), but Wilbur knows that he can stand the fire now, and an agreeing burst of bombs rumble in his ears. 

He bounces on his toes, feeling lighter than he had in days, weightless and flickering and dancing like a flame.

Wilbur knows that he can’t let Schlatt stop him. He’ll just get more TNT, more sand, gunpowder, bound it in a paper tube and light it with his fingertips. Who needs redstone?

There isn’t much time, but Wilbur smiles to the stars and turns his back on them, ready to snatch up a shovel and start working. 

A few minutes in of twisting through the trees he could identify by bark and Wilbur crumples to floor as his ears ache with a sudden simultaneous silence and static. 

He cannot hear the crunch of leaves as he drops to his knees, nor the strangled whimper that tears through his throat or the soft noise of surprise and approaching footsteps. 

A hand lands on his shoulder and Wilbur rears back and readies to snap at whatever possible traitor is going to slice him open, until he blinks at it’s the traitor himself.

Dream.

He makes a near growl felt in his chest as he tugs his shoulders back but Dream holds him still as he heaves and thrashes. 

Dream moves his head as if he’s talking, but Wilbur cannot hear over the oceans in his ears and the masked man seems to pick up on this, sliding the discoloured thing off his face and staring Wilbur dead in the eyes. 

It’s strange how much if feels to be looked in the eye when no one’s done it in months. 

Hazel-green meet hickory-brown and Wilbur feels himself easing, oddly enough, into the breaths Dream exaggerates. 

The two displaced leaders kneel on the forest floor, one rid of his mask and the other his mind. 

Slowly, forehead eventually slumping onto Dream’s chest, the waves recede and Wilbur can once again make out the swish of the leaves as Dream shifts his knees. 

“Wilbur?” Dream’s voice is unsteady, clearly unsettled and cautious. 

“Dream.” 

Wilbur lifts his head up again and gazes into each eye, one to the other and back again, before sliding himself backwards. 

Dream’s hand reaches for his wrist but is too slow. 

“Wilbur, I was looking for you, are you al-“ 

“Why were you looking for me?”

Dream blinks and changes seating from his knees to crossed legs. 

“Well, Wilbur, I wanted to offer you- Uh. This.” 

The man reaches into his pockets and Wilbur stiffens, ready for an axe to come down on his head, a vial of some potion to shatter, trident to pierce his neck and staple him to a tree. 

He doesn’t let himself think on how he knows it would be better that way, quiet and no rushing water in his ears.

Dream pulls out a drawstring bag and sets it on the floor between him and Wilbur. Wilbur thinks it’s strange, Dream’s style is to toss something to your hands, but he takes it.

Pulls apart the top and quickly unveils over five fistfuls or gunpowder, glittering and grey, sitting unashamedly in the bag. 

Wilbur knows his eyes narrow and mouth becomes bitter. 

“Why are you giving me this, Dream? You’re sided with Schlatt, remember? I though I’d have one person not out for Manberg or Pogtopia or their own ploys for the land. But you ruined all of that.” Wilbur chuckles.

Dream’s face, still maskless, flickers as Wilbur speaks. “Wait, what do you mean you’re not for Pogtopia?” 

Wilbur scoffs and gestures at the gunpowder before him.

“I wanted it fucking gone. I had- I had it all ready to blow, and Schlatt-“ His voice cracks. “Schlatt betrayed me once again, took it all, and you’re going to join up with him and _I won’t be able to make them quiet_.” 

Wilbur’s last words are half-whispered, half hissed and he tucks his legs in and clenches his hands into fists, nails digging into his palms. He can’t feel them, it’s much too [cold.](https://4forthecoldeditors.tumblr.com/)

“There’s the- the bombs still- from long ago and from yesterday and last year, and they want me to blow it up. The sky gods want me to blow it up, you see?” 

He’s never breathed a word about the bombs or the hissing or the sky gods asides from a few diluted curses, and now’s his eyes are stinging and he’s on a bed of leaves and dirt spilling out his soul to Dream. 

“At the festival- It was going to be over then, and then later, and later again, but they kept stopping it and now there’s the ocean in my ears, and it roars and I can’t hear anything.”

Dream has a blank look on his face, but moves to tug Wilbur from curling in on himself and holds him. 

Wilbur moves his head onto the green-cloaked shoulder and sobs into it, both bombs and ocean a dull threat in his ears. 

“Hallucinations- and hearing loss.” The words are whispered and slip like mercury from Wilbur’s thoughts. 

Wilbur, mid sob, chokes out another slurred sentence. 

“I don’t- I don’t want to drown, I wanted to burn, it wasn’t even a wildfire and I don’t want to be put out.” 

Dream pulls Wilbur tighter to him and waits a couple of breaths, Wilbur’s cries reduced to shuddering gasps and silent tears. 

“What if- You want- At the battle, let the fighting start, right? Then you can just run to your button and blow it all up, entirely uninterrupted. It’ll be quiet. It’ll be over.” 

Wilbur slides his head down until it's his forehead pressing into Dream’s shoulder. 

“Quiet. Over.” 

He gives a nod, still on Dream’s shoulder. 

Dream lets him stay, arms ‘round his back and letting his lungs finally pull in enough air. Then they pull apart, Wilbur drained, but chest a-flicker with a tentative, burning hope. 

Dream pulls Wilbur to shaky legs and and glances at his uncovered arms. He blinks, then pulls off his own cloak and offers it to Wilbur. 

“You’re shivering. Just- maybe don’t wear that into Pogtopia. On the 16th, put in on and run into the Manberg ranks. They’ll see the colour and think it’s me.”

Wilbur blinks slowly and pulls the cloak around himself, unused to Dream’s unrehearsed care, no faux niceties involved. 

“Who else is a traitor?”

Dream casts one more gaze at Wilbur and then pulls up a painted smile over his solemn face.

“It- it was a bluff," He lies. "Just wanted to cause more chaos. The gunpowder is all for TNT. If you need anything else let me know.” 

Wilbur nods. Tucks the drawstring bag into the green cloak and as if listening to some unheard sound, tilts his head. The man begins his walk home lit by stars and nothing else, weaves out of the woods from Dream’ sight.

It’s not but minutes more before the wave rise and crash in his ears again, and he slips past the meeting of people in the center of Pogtopia, retrieving his shovel from a chest. 

He only has a few more days before it’s time to go and he needs enough sand to restock the hollow under L’Manberg. 

He doesn’t pause when Tommy approaches him for the first time in a week, brushing past him. 

Wilbur couldn’t hear him anyways over the sound of the waves. 

ᐠ⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝ᐟ ᐠ⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝ᐟ ᐠ⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝ᐟᐠ⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝ᐟ ᐠ⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝ᐟ ᐠ⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝ᐟᐠ⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝ᐟ ᐠ⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝ᐟ ᐠ⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝ᐟᐠ⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝ᐟ ᐠ⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝ᐟ ᐠ⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝^⸜ˎ_ˏ⸝ᐟ

**Author's Note:**

> Me, praying:
> 
> 'PLEASE LET WILBUR BE THE TRAITOR PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE WAP WAP'
> 
> HAPPY FUCKINIG NOVEMBER 16TH
> 
> ALSO JOIN WRITER’s BLOCK (get it- hahaha Minecraft block???? GET IT?) DISCORDD
> 
> It’s actually entirely rad and is the first discord server I ever joined, and I LOVE EVERYBODY ON HERE!!! 
> 
> JOIN JOIN JOIN: https://discord.gg/w9CwSK26mm
> 
> Also; new au content coming your way soon??!?


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